By Rosemary Ricciardelli https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0905-8968 rricciardell@mun.ca, Micheal Taylor https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4959-2572, […], and Dale C. Spencer

Internationally, parole work is loaded with tensions, particularly when supervising a people convicted of sex crimes (PCSCs) who, due to their criminal history, are stigmatized and occupy the lowest rungs of the status hierarchy in prison and society more broadly. Drawing on analyses of interview data from federal parole officers (n = 150) employed by Correctional Service Canada, we interpret their perceptions and feelings about overseeing re-entry preparations and processes for the PCSCs on their caseloads. We unpack the “tensions” imbued in parole officers’ internal reflections and negotiation of complexities in their efforts toward supporting client’s rehabilitation efforts, desistance from crime while negotiating external factors (e.g., the lack of available programming), and being responsible for supervising PCSCs. We highlight facets of occupational stress parole officers experience, finding PCSCs may be more compliant when under supervision but may also require more of a parole officer’s resources, including time and energy. We put forth recommendations for greater empirical nuance concerning parole officer work and their occupational experiences and beliefs about PCSC, particularly as related to parole officer health.

  International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology , 2023. Published online before publication

By Shawn Bushway 

Job training programs for people under supervision have been based on an economic framework that identifies individuals involved in crime as a disadvantaged group with poor human capital. The best available research evidence has not found that these programs consistently improve employment outcomes. This article reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of standard job training programs and then examines new developments in the field that use alternative frameworks for understanding the roles of such programs. The first alternative is signaling: how people under community supervision use the completion of job training to signal to employers and others that the behavior that led to their conviction is either anomalous or no longer representative of them. The second alternative is a model of desistance known as identity change: the ways in which job training can help individuals solidify a new, more prosocial identity. I make sense of extant work and new alternatives and provide a set of recommendations for change in the community supervision system.

  ANNALS, AAPSS, 701, May 2022  

By Lauren G. Beatty and; Tracy L. Snell

This report provides statistics on whether prisoners were required to have a work assignment, the types of work they performed while incarcerated, and reasons they chose to have a work assignment if one was not required. Findings are based on data collected in the most recent Survey of Prison Inmates, which was conducted in 2016 through face-to-face interviews with a national sample of federal and state prisoners.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 7p.